As if the snaking vines were only a slight nuisance in impeding his movement, Gilgamesh extended to his full height like a bodybuilder power-lifting an empty barbell for all the grasping roots accomplished. He towered over everyone and any vine above his massive calves frayed and snapped like they were nothing more than party streamers. Ripley, standing to his side, was attempting to take full advantage of his earlier stumble by continuously sending slicing, crisscrossing cuts with her edged weapon. Sadly, even with her tremendous strength and skill with the blade, she was doing no better than giving him paper cuts, albeit giant-sized ones at that. Bright red blood oozed down Gilgamesh’s leather pant leg as he boldly stepped forward, snapping even more of Tallos’ seething vines continually shot up from the ground in a feeble attempt to restrain him.
Using what little time we had left before the boss re-engaged, the last phrase of Pyroclastic Funeral Pyre was forcefully pushed as quickly as possible from my lips. My fingers twisted in a perfectly harmonized dance as a broiling gout of incendiary ash soared from my open palms to crash against the boss’s splint mail armor. Risking a glance at my damage window, I desperately needed to know how much of the spell damage got through his magical resistances. I cheered inwardly as the spell appeared to have been eighty percent effective. With how much my Scent of Decay lowered the Ogre’s arcane resistances, I could only imagine how much weaker the damage would have been without first having the weakening effect swirling through his behemoth body. Immediately after the burning cloud stuck, tiny motes of burning embers expanded outward and swirled around the boss. The spell’s secondary effect would provide a regenerative effect to everyone in my party, shoring up some of the damage they would no doubt sustain as the fight progressed. Unfortunately, if Gilgamesh was capable of swinging his weapon as quickly as he had been pumping his legs movement earlier, we would all be turned into mincemeat in short order.
“He’s slowed by Lowki’s petrifying strike and your gnawing blizzard, but Tallos’ water arrows are not getting through,” Stella shouted beside me, catching everyone’s attention.
“Shit! They keep shattering on impact. They can’t seem to penetrate his armor or hide,” Tallos confirmed a hot second later. His words were riddled with frustration. The ranger had been firing those types of arrows nonstop the second the monstrous beast first came within range.
“My scent spell lowered his magical resistance, but only to fire, poison, acid, and disease,” I called over to my friend. “Switch to your flame and poison arrows! They might just get through!”
I had been hoping Tallos’ water arrows, which added an additional attack and movement speed debuff, would have helped Lowki and my efforts to bring the boss’s speed to a manageable level. Whether it was the Ogre’s innate resistances or Tallos’ arrows simply not getting past the boss’s fortified body, I didn’t know and probably never would. It was more likely Gilgamesh had boss-level magical resistances, but any wasted seconds of the warden doing essentially nothing in the fight was only decreasing everyone''s chances of survival.
My eyes widened at the notion of how to bypass Gilgamesh’s potent resistances. Perhaps some Quintessence-empowered spells would help every one of my spells to breach his magical protections fully! Unfortunately, a moment later, when an unexpected error message popped into my mind, I chided myself for not remembering. The Quintessence ability was on cool down, having last been used not that long ago against the Nagas. It wasn’t going to be ready again until long after this fight was decided.
“Perhaps that’s a good thing,” I chuckled wryly, prompting Stella to give me a puzzled look. I shook my head to signal her to ignore my comment. As long as we got past Cicero’s guardian, the overpowered ability was almost guaranteed to be a necessity when we inevitably faced off with the orc shaman. Sadly, when the boss backhanded Ripley and sent her skidding back nearly ten feet, I questioned the wisdom of my previous notion. It would be irrelevant if we didn’t get through this brawl.
“Damn it,” I swore to myself as Ripley charged back in. From the corner of my vision, I saw and heard several severely cracked and sprinter bones pop back into place as my pyre’s regenerative effect worked to speed along her recovery.
Nothing else for it, I forcibly shut down the unhelpful thoughts of unusable ability and refocused on the moment. Once more, I started another casting under the combined effects of my dual and quick skills with the intent of sending out every single DoT in my spell repertoire. Layer after layer of arcane energy, everything from acid to blazing heat, bit deeply into the boss’s leathery hide. Gilgamesh looked to be trying to build some forward momentum, his eyes laser focused onto me the entire time, and it was only the combined efforts of Ripley’s aggravating assaults, Lowki’s slapping quills, and the two debilitating snare effects to keep him relatively at bay. In only a few more feet though, the boss was going to leave the area of effect radius of my blizzard and gain a significant portion of his mobility back. This realization prompted me to cast a new one, this time targeting the space directly between me and the unyielding giant.
With the majority of my DoTs flowing through the boss, I paused my spell-casting to try a more mundane attack. Withdrawing my crescent-moon pistol, I took aim. My sights lined up directly with one of Gilgamesh’s hate-filled eyes as I pulled back on the trigger. The weapon kicked in my hands as the enchanted bullet sped unerringly toward the boss’s smirking face. The moment the gun fired, the boss’s buckler flashed a crimson color before shooting upward to protect his face. A shrill ‘TING!’ echoed as the typical hyper-penetrative bullet was deflected. To my seasoned eyes, it looked like a purely defensive talent and perhaps embedded into the magical properties of his shield to protect against critical hits. Hopefully, the blasted buckler had a cool down and a long one at that. Sadly, if I had to guess, I was willing to bet it was shorter than my pistol’s thirty-second reload time.
Stowing the enchanted weapon back into my inventory, I grimaced as Gilgamesh suddenly turned to Ripley as she was about to deliver another sword strike, this time against his armored pants. Blazing fast, even with the two attack speed debuffs surging through his bulging muscles, the massive Ogre backhanded Ripley. Thankfully, her warrior nature allowed her to anticipate the blow. As if about to stand against a hurricane, Ripley confidently planted her bony feet and interposed her shield in line with the boss’s meaty fist. Flesh met metal with a loud BANG!
In an entirely impressive display of fortitude, more so considering massive strength disparity, Ripley remained upright only sliding back a handful of feet. At first, I couldn’t comprehend how she had been able to withstand the rock-shattering blow. Then it struck me. It was her dwarven shield’s remarkable defensive enchantments. With it held out before her, it allowing her to stand firm against the mighty back fist.
Several fire arrows slammed into Gilgamesh’s neck as a puzzled expression rocked his face. He, too, couldn’t comprehend how his opponent was still standing. Lowki, ever the rogue, capitalized on the monster’s momentary astonishment, taking this opportunity to spring on his back. Pumping his sextuple legs furiously, the panther dug deep furrows into flesh and leather armor alike. Lowki climbed the boss’s back to bite savagely onto the back of his neck a moment before slamming both barbed tentacles into Gilgamesh’s cheeks. The panther must have put her Solidifying Strike into the attack as visible ripples of stiffening magic expanded outward from the impact site.
Lowki was unfortunately tardy in detaching from his precarious perch. The great cat never intended to stay there having no hope of crushing the Ogre’s spine. With frightening brutality, Gilgamesh’s grubby hand suddenly materialized beside the panther as he attempted to spring away. Catching Lowki by his leading front legs, the boss roared like an unstoppable landslide before throwing the displacer beast far into the distance. I watched in horror and realization that Lowki’s ability to teleport between his duplicates was summarily neutralized if he was in direct contact with a hostile presence. Another roar tore across the field as Lowki was sent flying. If he survived his landing, the impact would either take him out of the fight entirely or would be a long while until he returned.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Wincing at the horrifying display of raw strength, I, nonetheless, maintained enough focus on my casting to complete Synaptic Toxin. A shimmer in the air briefly appeared in the air before lancing towards the triumphant boss. Starting up another spell, my words nearly faltered as what I assumed was one of Lowki’s clones slammed another set of poisonous quills into Gilgamesh’s ankle. The boss roared in pain as even more poison was pumped into his body as he turned to smash the panther into a pulp. The cat was ready and had already shifted a half dozen feet back to avoid any potential retaliatory strike.
Only barely maintaining enough concentration to hold the spell weave developing between my hands, my mind worked out what I just witnessed. How in the hells was Lowki able to strike out against the boss after so clearly being thrown hundreds of feet away? I understood after only a moment and focused my will to maintain my budding spell.
Lowki had not been able to teleport between his mirror images, not at least until after the behemoth released him with a vicious overhead toss. I smirked at the boss’s missed opportunity to take the troublesome feline out of the fight. His hit-and-run tactics were working well for the five-hundred-pound murder machine. Gilgamesh would have been better served to slam the pesky cat into the ground instead like he was a whip-corded sledgehammer the moment he got a grip on the usually untouchable feline.
While this played out, a half dozen scarlet-tinged arrows, swiftly followed by others shining with viridescent energy, repeatedly slammed into the mountainous Ogre. A good number shattered on impact, either against the boss’s unarmored head or against the strips of metal sown into his leather garments. Still, Tallos found some success, puncturing arrowheads between the glint of metal and into the unprotected flesh of his bulging biceps. Sadly, those muscular appendages were speeding through the air too quickly to hit with any repetition, even with Tallos’ self-only Eagle Eye buff going. A grumble of frustration from the usually stoic elf reached my ears before Tallos switched most of his shots against the boss’s broad neck muscles while taking pot shots between the reinforced metal on Gilgamesh’s torso and thighs when the opportunity presented itself.
My latest DoT landed and bypassed a strong portion of Gilgamesh’s magical resistances. Ripley did her best to draw the Ogre’s attention towards her since she was best suited among our party to withstand his punishing assaults. Yet, the boss was not dissuaded from his primary objective: me. The giant’s penetrating gaze bore holes into my backpedaling form. It was clear I was the biggest threat on the battlefield, and the pulverizing Ogre understood that. With his reinforced armor and blade-turning skin, Tallos and Ripley’s efforts were mostly for naught. Gilgamesh and I both understood it was my crippling damage over time spells that stood the best chance at felling the behemoth. Lowki’s virulent poison, further enhanced by his Bangle of Poison Potency, surely made an impact on Gilgamesh’s steadily declining health bar. Still, the venom itself wasn’t capable of taking him down on its own, regardless of the number of envenomed spines currently piercing his gigantic body.
With my focus split between the advancing monstrosity and complex spell casting, I almost missed a dull yellow glow flash outward from the Ogre’s boots a fraction of a second before Gilgamesh moved. Instantly kicking up a dust cloud, the massive creature’s legs sped him across the intervening field toward me with nearly the breakneck speed we first witnessed as he sprinted away from the obelisk structure under Cicero’s emerald spire. Not sure if the glimmer of light emanating from his obviously enchanted footwear could be used against him somehow, I had to move or be pulverized. It would only be after the battle I would learn Lowki and Ripley had, at the same moment the boss charged, been sent rocketing away. Whether by some combination of skills or from the boots themselves, a shockwave of force expanded like a nova away from the Ogre, sending my two friends tumbling away.
Gilgamesh roared anew as he tore across the intervening distance, his legs an indecipherable blur of motion. His guttural scream reminded me of a Tyrannosaurus Rex from one of the Jurassic movies and was absolutely blood curdling to experience. It was thoroughly terrifying and instantly gave me flashbacks of when I was a kid and scared to death that a T-Rex was about to pop out from a nearby copse of trees. The childhood fear had been borne of pure fantasy, of course, but it still touched an instinctual part of my mind. It threatened to immobilize me.
“Shit!” was the only response my mind could produce as the ground beneath me bucked like a series of micro-quakes was reverberating out for miles. I was only barely able to maintain my balance.
Even with the collaboration of petrification from Lowki’s strike with the biting ice shards of my blizzard, the boss’s speed was still staggering to witness. My only saving grace, if one could call it that, was it took Gilgamesh a moment or two to reach his top speed. The bull racing towards me was like someone’s demented melding of the Flash and the Hulk while not-to-subtly sprinkling in more than a hearty dash of intelligence. It coalesced to form a planetary threat-level supervillain of unprecedented danger. I had time only for a single, quick cast spell before contact and did not spare a moment to contemplate if I was making the right decision or not. Even if my reflexive spell cast worked, given the total oblivion scrambling toward me, I was going to be in a world of hurt no matter the outcome.
Quick cast, at its current level, increased my incantations mana cost by nearly one hundred and sixty percent. My Dual Cast skill expanded upon that further by an additional hundred eighty-five percent, meaning every spell was exorbitantly expensive to cast with both. Combining the skills was absolutely essential if my hasty gambit had any chance of dispelling the painful tempest barreling toward me.
A scintillating bolt of pure electricity split the morning sky, tearing across the dirt field at the behemoth Ogre only a few feet away.
In the split moment before the broad sword impacted, my mind registered Gilgamesh hadn’t altered his trajectory as I lunged to the side in sheer desperation to avoid what was coming. Either he couldn’t deviate from his blitzkrieg, or there wasn’t enough time for him to do so. It didn’t really matter, though, as all I knew a moment later was the blinding flash of color exploding in my vision as his weapon cracked into my outstretched legs.
It was only my frantic dive which saved me from a lethal strike to my chest. As it was, even though it was more of a glancing blow, the ferocity behind the attack sent me spinning through the air like a pinwheel. My vision spun bewilderingly and I lost track of what was up and what was down. My mana reserves had been below the forty percent mark, not including the likely massive chunk just stolen by the boss’s attack, so more than half of the force from Gilgamesh’s strike bypassed my Empowered Aegis completely. Without my reliable defensive ability, I would have certainly lost both of my legs right below the knees.
As I was sent careening through the air, I somehow kept my wits enough about me to panic trigger one of my enchanted rings, immediately eliciting a series of System messages to hurtle into my subconscious.
Warning! You have been affected by an all-consuming “Blind Rage,” all voluntary control of your actions is removed while under these effects.
Notice! Your Strength has doubled.
Notice! Your Constitution has doubled.
Notice! You are IMMUNE to the mind-altering effects of “Blind Rage”.
If it wasn’t for my Clear Headed II ability, such a panicked move would have certainly doomed me to a painful death regardless of how much my health had just spiked. Without it, I would have become a mindless brute standing against a titan. I could only hope the extra Constitution would allow me to survive the next few seconds and what was surely another impending attack from the marauding boss.
Slamming into a dune, a whirlpool of vision-obscuring dust blasted all around my impact crater.
Even after my impromptu crash landing, the jackhammer of bucking earth seemed to go on forever, never faltering under the boss’s enormous weight. Even though I had some mana points remaining in my depleted resource pool, a single blow from Gilgamesh would likely be enough to zero it out completely. After that, I had only my increased health points to keep me alive. I was out of options.
“Move!” Stella screamed from somewhere beyond the billowing dust cloud that was only beginning to dissipate. Not sure if she was speaking to me, I sent my prone body into a roll and it was all I could do to heed what sounded like a dire warning. The hammering footfalls seemed to grow in strength, bringing the boss near enough it felt like I could taste the sweat profusely steaming off the Ogre’s body as he closed upon my downed form. Like a specter, a blot of shadow materialized in the swirling dust, heralding what could be my final moments in this life.